eucatastrophe n. eucatastrophic [ < Gr. eu, "good" and catastrophe Coined by JRR Tolkien.] 1. (in a narrative) The event that shifts the balance in favor of the protagonist when all seems lost. 2. A happy ending.

02/10/2018

"We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it"

The Breakfast Club REVIEW

Clinical psychologists refer to particular members of a dysfunctional family as the “IP” (the identified patient) or as “the symptom bearer.” Consciously or unconsciously, families select someone and ask them (or force) them to make the family’s pain public - so that the family can get help - without having to say they have a problem I suppose.

In John Hughes’ coming-of-age film, The Breakfast Club, five such IP’s find themselves in a Saturday detention –each of them is from a member of a different “tribe” within the school. One is a brain, one is an athlete. One is a basket case. One is a princess. And one is a criminal. This is how the school administration sees them and how they see each other before the day begins. It is quite clear that they have no conception of any similarities or compatibilities between themselves as their incarceration gets under way. They are not friends and they treat each other with undisguised rudeness, animosity, and indifference. This changes throughout the course of the day as they come to realize that they do all belong to one another. They are all IP’s.

What they come to discover is that they have equal disdain for the adults in their lives and a good deal of anger towards their parents for a variety of reasons. “The Brain” wants to kill himself because his parents can’t accept him getting anything less than straight As. The “criminal” has a physically abusive father. The “princess” feels like her parents just use her to get back at one another. The “athlete” is tired of his father trying to live out his own life through his sports. The “basket-case” seems to not want to talk about her parents but you understand that they are not good people. She may even be homeless.

With a sufficient amount of neglect on the part of their less-than-stellar administrator-slash-chaperone, the five ne’er-do-wells begin to share their feelings, their fears, their inhibitions, and their stories about how they wound up in detention. In the course of processing and their various therapeutic moments, they destroy some school property, smoke some dope, engage in what we would label today as “sexual harassment,” and provoke the administrator to violence. Note. While locking a teenager in a broom closet was probably a bad idea even in 1984, today it would get you fired and maybe put in jail I suspect.

It is sort of sad that the only adult in the school that these kids get to talk with is a guy who little understands them or cares. They are forced to provide therapy for each other in their own stumbling and juvenile ways. But clearly, they do a better job of helping each other grow up a little than any of the adults in their life.

Question for Comment: Who were the adults in your life who helped you to navigate your way through this period of your life?